This is an illegal group and also has its own
goals and structure, plus carried out direct attacks against the
Japanese government.

Aum Shinrikyo, now known as Aleph, is a Japanese religious group
founded by Shoko Asahara. The group gained international notoriety in
1995, when several of its followers carried out a Sarin gas attack in
the Tokyo subways. The organization was founded in 1984, starting off
as a Yoga and meditation class known as Aum-no-kai ("Aum club") and
steadily grew in the following years. It gained the official status as
a religious organization in 1989. It attracted such a considerable
number of young graduates from Japan's elite universities that it was
dubbed a "religion for the elite".

The cult started attracting controversy in the late 1980s with accusations of deception of
recruits, and of holding cult members against their will and forcing
members to donate money. A murder of a cult member who tried to leave
is now known to have taken place in February 1989. At the end of 1993
the cult started secretly manufacturing the nerve agent sarin and
later VX gas. They also attempted to manufacture 1000 automatic rifles
but only managed to make one. At the cult's headquarters in
Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, the Japanese police found
explosives, chemical weapons and biological warfare agents, such as
anthrax and Ebola cultures, and a Russian MIL Mi-17 military
helicopter. There were stockpiles of chemicals which could be used for
producing enough sarin to kill four million people. Police also found
laboratories to manufacture drugs such as LSD, methamphetamines, and a
crude form of truth serum, a safe containing millions of dollars worth
in cash and gold, and cells, many still containing prisoners.

During the raids, Aum issued statements claiming that the chemicals were for
fertilizers. On 10 October 1995, Aum Shinrikyo was ordered to be stripped
of its official status as a "religious legal entity" and was declared
bankrupt in early 1996. However the group continues to operate under
the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, funded by a
successful computer business and donations, and under strict
surveillance. Attempts to ban the group altogether under the 1952
Subversive Activities Prevention Law were rejected by the Public
Security Examination Commission in January 1997.

In 2000 the organization changed its name to "Aleph" (the first letter of the
Hebrew alphabet), changing its logo as well. A June 2005 report by the
National Police Agency showed that Aleph has approximately 1650
members, of which 650 live communally in cult facilities. The group
operates 26 facilities in 17 prefectures, as well as about 120
residential facilities. Aum Shinrikyo has had several overseas
branches: a Sri Lanka branch, small branches in New York City, United
States and Bonn. The group also had several centers in
Moscow, Russia.

The EU has designated Aum Shinrikyo as a terrorist organization. On
December 11, 2002, The Canadian government added Aum to its list of
banned terrorist groups. The United States also maintains Aum on its
list of foreign terrorist groups.